Sick Day
by Lady-of-the-Refrigerator
Summary: Liz had been worried Red was trying to avoid her, trying to hide something… inconvenient about their investigation into Tom, but the truth for once was much less sinister. [Lizzington, S1, set at some point post-Ivan, pre-Berlin, 3/3, COMPLETE]
1. Chapter 1

Liz stood in the middle of the living room in Red's latest hideaway and let out a heavy sigh. She finally understood why he seemed so evasive in his texts that morning _and_ why he wouldn't speak to her over the phone. She had been worried he was trying to avoid her, trying to hide something… inconvenient about their investigation into Tom, but the truth for once was much less sinister.

Red was sick.

When Liz arrived, he was asleep with his feet propped up on the coffee table, surrounded by half-drunk cups of tea and a makeshift trash barrel filled to the brim with used tissues balanced precariously next to his dozing body. He would almost look peaceful, if his nose wasn't chapped and red from all the wiping.

Liz stashed her bag behind the couch, quickly setting aside her research and with it the reason she'd shown up in the first place. She leaned over the back of the couch in an attempt to rescue one of the teacups from certain doom and it was only when she herself was balanced rather precariously above Red that she realized he had opened his eyes. She barely managed to bite back a yelp, and only a tiny bit of cold tea sloshed over the lip of the cup.

"I must've missed the doorbell," Red said, his voice scratchy and gruff from sleep and sickness.

"I didn't bother ringing it. I figured you were avoiding me so I let myself in."

"You 'let yourself in'," he repeated, with an amused lilt to his tone and a quirk to his brow.

"Not everything has to be a mystery, you know. You could've just told me you were sick, I wouldn't have pressed the issue."

"Don't worry, this is hardly going to put a damper on our investigation."

"I'm not worried about the investigation."

Liz let her sentence and what it implied between the lines hang heavily in the air between them. She started gathering up as many cups and mugs as she could carry, bringing them with her into the kitchen; Red trailed after her, looking more than a little lost and bewildered by the sudden shift away from his apparent agenda of wasting away on the couch, alone.

"You don't have to clean up after me, Lizzy. I promise you I would've gotten around to it eventually."

"When, after twelve hours of building a collection of Petri dishes in the form of teacups?"

"I was waiting for my second wind; I needed to rest my eyes for a little while," he said, hovering a little too close while she tried to arrange the cups in the sink. He must've leaned over just a bit too far or moved just a bit too fast because he started to sway on his feet.

"Whoa, whoa," Liz said, holding her hands out to steady him. "You should sit down before you fall down."

"I'm not an invalid."

"No one's saying you are."

She held out her arm; he took it with an aggrieved expression on his face and let her lead him back to the couch. Once he settled again, she went about gathering up more of the debris littered around him.

"Really, Lizzy, you don't have to do that. I don't want you to catch anything."

"Yeah? Well, I'm gonna have to catch you again if you don't stay off your feet. Besides," she called over her shoulder from the kitchen trash can, "this needs cleaning sooner rather than later."

After she washed her hands, Liz pulled open the fridge and started rummaging around. "You don't have any juice."

"That's… true," he said, a little confused at the apparent subject change.

"You can't just not have juice when you're sick," she said in a huff. "I'm going down to the corner store to pick some up."

Red twisted himself around to catch her arm when she bent to pick up her bag from behind the couch. "Lizzy, please, you just got here. I'll be fine without juice," he said, far closer to outright begging than the situation warranted.

The idea that he didn't want her to leave warmed her. Even more than the gentle touch on her forearm.

"Well, then at the very least I'm making you a fresh cup of tea."

"If you insist," he said, and then he squinted at his watch. "Good god. Is it really three o'clock already?"

"Mmhmm."

Red let out a long-suffering sigh and scrubbed his hands over his face in an attempt to clear away the cobwebs from his brain. "I had so much planned for today."

Liz felt an odd pang in her chest. Red sounded so… normal. As if his plans for the day had no chance of involving arms deals or toppling governments or hunting down rogue assassins who just happened to be her pseudo-husband. She hated to admit how much she missed normality, but miss it she did. Even this small glimpse of it was comforting, despite the fact that the 'normal' person in the equation was in fact the same criminal mastermind who had turned her world upside down in the first place.

"Whatever you had planned is gonna have to wait until you're better, isn't it? Honey?"

"Sure. And if there's any lemon left, I'll take some of that, too," he said. "A cold just isn't something that should put me out of commission completely. How would my enemies react to finding out that The Concierge of Crime can be felled by a common cold?"

"They'd discover that you're human, just like they are."

"Well, _that's_ simply not acceptab—" Suddenly, he brought his arm up and sneezed rather violently into his elbow at least half a dozen times. Liz sighed—if he _still_ thought he was going to get away with downplaying just how miserable he was, he had another thing coming.

"Come on. I know you're sicker than you want to let on. What's the point of hiding it from me?"

"I don't get sick, Lizzy. At least not sick enough to warrant you playing nursemaid."

"What, you have Dembe for that?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

"Where is he?"

"I gave him the week off."

"Before or after you realized you were getting sick?"

He gazed up at her for a moment. "After," he conceded.

"You're impossible," Liz said. "Admit it—you didn't tell me you were sick because you didn't want me to see you vulnerable." Red fell silent for a while, studying her face with his brow furrowed. She frowned, a strange sort of disappointment settling in her stomach. "That's it, isn't it?"

"No," he said, quietly. "Not exactly. It's… Other than Dembe and occasionally Mr. Kaplan, I've never let anyone close enough to take care of me in moments like this. Not since… before."

"And the idea of that bothers you?"

"It brings back memories. Having you take care of me in particular reminds me a little too much of…" He gave a half-hearted wave of his hand as he trailed off.

"Too much of before?" Red stared at Liz, but didn't nod or shake his head. It felt like he was waiting for her to make some kind of connection, to figure out what he was saying between the lines all on her own. There was really only one reason she could think of for him to avoid saying what he meant outright. Dare she ask him if that's what it was? "Too much of… your wife?"

A shadow of a sad smile crossed his features.

"I remind you of your wife?"

"Not… specifically. But the, uh… the emotions there are… similar enough."

"Oh." The disappointment in Liz's stomach morphed quickly into the fluttering of butterflies. That was… quite a thing for Red to say. She thought they'd grown closer since the night he gave her the music box, but she still hadn't expected him to be quite so forthcoming so soon.

Well, Red's version of forthcoming, at least.

She handed him the teacup and saucer, focusing on anything and everything but his wary, curious eyes.

"Lizzy… I can't say that I meant what I just said lightly, but I also don't want you to worry that I expect—"

"I know you don't expect a damn thing from me here, Red. You tried to convince me not to come. I'm the one who broke into your house, remember?"

"That's not really what I'm trying to… never mind." Red trailed off with a sigh, lifting the cup to take a cautious sip and watching her out of the corner of his eye, as if he was expecting her to turn tail and run away.

Liz wouldn't be Liz if she didn't defy his expectations, however. Just as cautiously as he took his sip, she took a seat next to him.

"What did your wife do for you when you were sick?" she asked, casually leaning her elbow on the back of the couch so she could prop up her head as if they had conversations like this every day.

Continuing down this train of thought could easily be taken as tacit acceptance of the sentiment Red had expressed. He took a breath and held it for a long moment, setting his teacup on the side table, and Liz could tell that he was actively trying to chose whether or not to interpret it that way. Self-preservation probably told him not to, but that wasn't the conclusion she wanted to encourage.

She tucked her leg up under her, which brought her close enough that they would've been able to share a confidence even if they weren't completely alone, and he let out his breath.

"It didn't matter what she did, really. All that really mattered was that I had someone who was willing to care for me the _way_ she did without also technically being my employee. I know I'm more than a boss for Dembe and Kate, but it doesn't erase that aspect of our relationships."

"You're not my boss."

Red gave a congested chuckle. "No, not in the slightest." He shot Liz an awkward smile and rubbed his hands up and down his thighs, searching around for something else to say, to do, to fill the silence.

"If you want to turn on the tv, I'm sure the remote is around here somewh—" Red seemed taken aback when Liz reached out a hand and rested the back of it against his forehead; he couldn't even begin to contain his surprise, the way his body jumped at the contact. He recovered from the shock enough to lean into her touch just as she moved her hand away; she didn't want him to feel as though that was why she moved her hand, so she redirected it to his cheek instead. His eyes slid shut.

"You don't feel very warm," she said.

"A lot of the time," he said softly, "my temperature drops when I'm sick. It doesn't feel any better than a fever, unfortunately." He opened his eyes again slowly; she could feel the jolt from the eye contact in her chest, made all the more intense by the hand she still had on his cheek.

Red had offered Liz comfort in the wake of Tom's betrayal at each new step along the way—quiet companionship, hand-holding, hugs, and a shoulder to cry on… She had thought she'd grown accustomed to it, had thought they both had, but perhaps offering _him_ physical comfort was new enough territory that it still felt charged. Even now. Even when all she was doing was checking for a fever.

Checking for a fever after he implied he had feelings for her that resembled what he once felt for his wife.


	2. Chapter 2

Liz took a shaky breath and swallowed.

She ran her thumb across the plane of Red's cheek and she could feel the edge of where his five o'clock shadow was beginning to grow. "Don't you have anything more comfortable to wear than a suit? Like a pair of sweats, or at least some pajamas?"

"Changing isn't worth the aches and pains."

She pulled her hand away and rested it briefly on his chest, taking his lapel between her fingers and giving it a quick tug. "You could at least take off the damn vest and tie. Who wants to be all buttoned up like this when they're sick?"

Red let out a heavy sigh and tore his gaze away from hers. With some reluctance, he heaved himself onto his feet again and reached up to loosen his tie, to unbutton his woolen vest. He folded them neatly and handed them to her.

To Liz's surprise, he didn't stop there. Her breath caught in her throat—she imagined a moment like this more times than she'd care to admit. It was all she could do to keep her expression neutral when he plucked his shirttails from his waistband and undid the row of small pearlescent buttons down the front of his dress shirt, shrugging out of it and adding it to the growing pile in her arms. Then he loosened the side tabs on his trousers and untucked his undershirt; Liz willed herself not to blush when she caught sight of a tiny strip of bare belly skin as he finished adjusted his clothing.

Red took his seat on the sofa again, leaning against one of the arms and crossing his legs at the knee. The short sleeves of his undershirt stretched around his biceps as he picked up his teacup to take another sip, and Liz's stomach flipped.

Red had always worn at least two layers of clothing in her presence, usually more, and she was _acutely_ aware of the fact that she had never seen him in such a state of undress as he was in right now. This was like something out of one of those dreams she started having after Garrick's attack, during those long weeks when Red was in the wind and she wasn't sure she'd ever see him again. Her subconscious had supplied all sorts of things that she could do if she ever _did_ see him again, and she woke up next to Tom on many a morning with a sick, conflicted kind of guilt curling in her stomach.

Today, however? Today it wasn't _guilt_ that curled in her stomach.

No human being should be so damn captivating while in the throes of a bad cold. It simply wasn't fair. The unusually easy intimacy that had steadily been growing between them since she had found proof of Tom's betrayal hadn't prepared her for this particular bolt from the blue.

Red's mannerisms read differently without the usual barrier of his dress shirt and vest. They were softer, gentler somehow. Even delicate. Which wasn't completely without precedent—this was a man who greeted allies and associates with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, after all. That he was also a man who could—and would—strangle someone who betrayed him with his bare hands was secondary at the moment, but still vitally important.

Liz enjoyed the dichotomy in him—the hard and the soft that balanced each other. It called to the complicated parts of her own nature, no matter how deeply she tried to keep them buried in her past. His complexity made her feel that everything would be all right, that she _could_ allow herself to have both darkness and light, strength and tenderness, cheerfulness and sorrow, and still survive. He had, after all. He had navigated this thorny, dangerous world for most of her life. Maybe there really was a chance for her to survive it, too.

Liz wanted desperately to start up the conversation again, hoping to distract herself from… Well, she hoped to distract herself from how distracted she was. (She was almost grateful that Red was sick, because if he was his usual observant self today he surely would've noticed. Showing her cards on her own terms was one thing; having him see right through her was another thing entirely.)

She cleared her throat. "You gotta admit you feel better like that," she said.

Red met her eyes, offering her a tight smile. "I guess you're right."

"Why did you even bother getting dressed this morning in the first place?"

"I had to make a phone call," he said, simply.

"What, over FaceTime?" He looked at her blankly and she rolled her eyes. "I'll take that as a no."

Silence once again began to creep over the two of them, but unfortunately it wasn't an entirely companionable silence. Liz was too conscious of every tiny, minuscule shift and fidget of Red's body next to hers to relax properly. He, however, didn't seem to have the same problem.

Where Liz was restless, Red was… not. Before long, he began to drift off to sleep beside her and there was a part of her that felt an odd sort of… fulfillment in the knowledge that he was comfortable enough to fall asleep in her presence. They'd come a long way since the early days. Regardless of everything else, she was grateful for that.

Liz studied Red's face as it went lax with sleep, watched the tension fade and his worry lines smooth as he drifted deeper. His eyelashes caught the afternoon sun and she couldn't help but marvel at how blond they appeared in the warm light.

She shook herself. Enough was enough. She couldn't just sit there all afternoon and watch him sleep, waxing poetical about his gosh darned _eyelashes_ of all things. She had to pull herself together—sure, she was in too deep, but that didn't mean she had to turn into a complete sap over him before either of them had even…

Before either of them had even what? Made a move? Liz realized with a jolt that she _could_ make a move, if and when she wanted. Red had feelings for her, strong enough that he likely wouldn't reject her—that barrier had fallen with his admission. The only thing stopping her was her.

It was a heady feeling. Too heady. She needed a few moments to herself, to clear her mind without his presence clouding her thoughts.

Once Liz was sure Red had fallen into a deep enough sleep that she could sneak away without disturbing him, she took to her feet.

_Now, if Red had a set of keys, where would he put them?_ she wondered, wandering off down the hall with his discarded clothing in her arms after the table by the front door proved unfruitful. Snooping around his bedroom—his refuge, temporary though it may be—made her feel somewhat self-conscious, but she wouldn't let that stop her from carrying out the task at hand.

Liz spied Red's ever-present blue jacket draped over the valet stand next to the dresser. Setting his clothing on his dresser, she picked up the jacket so she could search through the pockets. She came across an old brass lighter, a monogrammed handkerchief, and a well-maintained pocket knife before she finally found the keys.

Slipping the keys into her own pocket, Liz shook the jacket out to hang it neatly again on the valet stand. A wave of Red's scent wafted up from the fabric and her eyes slid shut as it washed over her. She warred with herself for a long moment before she swore under her breath and slid her arms into the sleeves instead of putting it away.

Taking one last glance around the room, Liz's gaze settled on the blanket folded at the foot of the bed. It looked like it would have a comforting weight to it, but it didn't seem like it would be overly warm. She scooped it into her arms and brought it back with her to the living room.

Gingerly, she sat next to Red on the very edge of the couch.

"Red," Liz whispered, once, twice—and on the third attempt, he opened one eye, just enough to register how close she was before he blinked awake in groggy confusion.

"Did I fall asleep again?"

"I thought you said you were only resting your eyes," she said, her lips curling into a teasing smile; he rolled said eyes right back at her. "I'm gonna run down to the store after all. At the rate you're going, you're gonna be out of tissues before the night's out."

Red didn't argue with her this time, but he couldn't quite hide the disappointment on his face. "I suppose I'm not going to be able to convince you that I'll have someone handle it later."

"Not a chance. Here." Liz unfolded the blanket and moved to wrap it around Red's shoulders. When he grabbed hold of the edges to pull it tighter around himself, his fingers brushed hers. Time slowed. "I, uh… I thought it might make your makeshift sickbed a little more cozy," she said, her mouth suddenly dry.

Liz stood again, quickly enough that her head started to swim. Red squinted up at her as she rounded the couch to leave.

"Are you wearing my jacket?" he asked, and Liz's shoulders stiffened.

"Do you mind? I left mine in the car."

"No. No, I don't mind," he said, only he sounded like he was pleased at the turn of events, rather than merely not minding.

The softness and warmth in his eyes resonated in her chest and it was all Liz could do to stop herself from bending down and pressing a kiss to his forehead before she walked away. She _couldn't_ do that and just walk away, changing the dynamic of their relationship in an instant only to disappear. She settled for resting her hand on his blanket-covered shoulder and giving it a comforting squeeze.

Liz could feel the tension in Red's back easing under her touch.

"Lizzy?" he said, gazing up at her over the back of the sofa.

"Hmm?"

Red's mouth moved wordlessly for a moment. "Thank you," he said at last.

Liz nodded in acknowledgement, but she knew 'thank you' wasn't all that he meant to say. Thanking someone for bringing you a blanket wasn't difficult—he wouldn't have struggled with it that much. She could only wonder what he originally intended to say before his courage failed him, but she was so very close to the edge of herself at that moment that she also didn't have the courage to ask.

Her hand was on the doorknob before he spoke again.

"Hurry back," he said, his voice slightly gruff and barely more than a whisper, but the words made her chest tighten and her eyes start to burn.

"I will," she promised, almost as quiet as he was, because she didn't trust her voice not to crack if she tried for normal volume.


	3. Chapter 3

"Hey," Liz said, laying her hand on Red's bare arm, just above his elbow. (She had never touched him there before and she couldn't convince herself not to take the opportunity when it presented itself.)

His eyelids fluttered open as he let out a sleepy humming noise. "Lizzy?"

"Drink this," she said, handing him a whiskey glass filled with orange juice. "I bought you ice cream for later, once the flavor wears off, or popsicles if you don't want dairy. And I grabbed a couple different kinds of cold medicine; I wasn't sure what you already had."

Red pushed himself up into a sitting position, but thankfully since he had decided to stretch his legs out along the length of the couch rather than propping his feet up on the hard edge of the coffee table again, he didn't seem nearly as stiff or uncomfortable.

He drank heavily from the glass, wincing a little at the sensation of citrus on his sore throat. Once he drained it, he handed it back.

"There. Are you happy now?"

"Yes."

Liz set the glass on the coffee table; she could feel Red's eyes on her as he watched her quietly, still propped up awkwardly on one arm.

"How about you?" she asked. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm all right. I think the catnap did me good."

"We've progressed from 'resting your eyes' to 'catnaps'—should I be worried?"

Red shook his head, not breaking eye contact. Liz swallowed thickly and nodded, more an unconscious response to her own strengthening resolve than a reaction to anything he had done.

She reached across to the far side of the couch to grab an extra throw pillow and pulled him further upright so she could stuff it behind his back with its twin. When he didn't object to any of her manhandling, she gave his shoulder an affectionate squeeze and put her cheek to his forehead again.

Just as he had earlier, he leaned into her touch.

Just as he had earlier, he didn't feel warm… but he didn't exactly feel _right_ either.

Liz couldn't help but turn her head and brush her lips against his sparse hairline. Red let out a sound somewhere between a whimper and a coo, and she slid her arm across his shoulders, pulled him even closer to her until he could rest his weight against her.

It was almost a hug.

If he put his arms around her in return, it would be. And just like that, just as the thought crossed her mind, he slid a tentative hand around to splay against her lower back, underneath the jacket she'd neglected to take off.

His jacket.

The jacket the woman who owned the corner store had _recognized_, as it turned out. Liz took a deep breath and looked skyward for guidance, before letting the air out of her lungs in a sigh.

Well.

Here goes nothing.

"The little old lady down in the shop sent me home with pastries for you."

Red was silent for a fraction of a second too long, perhaps stalled on her use of the word 'home'. "Did she?"

"Mmhmm. Did you tell her about me?"

"Not in so many words," he said. "Why? Did she… say something to you?"

"Not in so many words. But she does want you to bring me around for dinner sometime."

Liz felt Red's body tense against hers and a long moment passed before he spoke again. "She's been pestering me to take my sweetheart to see her for years, but lately she's been more insistent. I think perhaps she… sensed something."

Liz ran her hand up and down Red's back and his body actually, literally, shivered in her arms.

"Are you sure you're OK?" she asked.

"Mmm," he murmured. "I can't remember the last time I felt anywhere near this 'OK'."

"I don't know if that's an exaggeration or one of the saddest things I've ever heard."

"It's neither. You're a miracle worker, Lizzy. You've healed me."

"Come on, I mean it—stop being so damn sarcastic."

"That wasn't sarcasm."

She pulled back to look him in the eye, with one brow arched. "I'm not a cure for the common cold, Red."

"Of course you're not. But that's not the only thing that ails me," he said. "And I would be lying if I said that you hadn't set me on the road to recovery for some of the others. Just by being your stubborn, determined, resilient self."

"I can't even begin to imagine what you mean by that."

He took a slow, deep breath and the warmth in his eyes was almost enough to make her turn away in self-consciousness. Almost.

"I've asked a lot of you the past few months, Lizzy. I've involved you in situations that have required you to make choices you couldn't have possibly prepared yourself to make. Pushed you to extremes no one should ever have to endure. Exposed you to horrors you likely would never have encountered even in your admittedly dark career path.

"Anyone else would've thrown in the towel ages ago. Hell, anyone else would've tried to kill me a few dozen times by now, rather than going out of their way to make me tea and bring me orange juice. Whatever your reasons have been to stick this out, I'm grateful for them." He gave the hand she had resting on his chest a quick, gentle caress. "And I'm grateful you didn't… take what I've said today as a reason to leave and never look back. But I would understand it if you did. The last thing I want is to put you in yet another position you wouldn't want to be in."

"Who says I wouldn't want it?"

Red inhaled sharply, speechless for a long, dazzling moment while he searched Liz's face with eyes filled with a timid sort of hope. "I…I only assumed—"

"Well, don't," she said. "Because maybe that's part of the reason I've stuck this out for so long. Did you ever consider that?"

"Not in the slightest," he breathed, incredulous.

"Maybe from now on you should."

Tentatively, Liz slid her hand up from Red's chest to his neck, taking a moment to cradle the back of his head and run her fingers over his short-cropped hair, before she glanced down at his lips—once, twice—and leaned in.

He pulled away just a hair, unsure. "I don't want you to catch anything," he said again.

"You'll take care of me if I do, won't you?"

"With my last breath, if necessary."

"Drama queen," she said, and she smothered his answering chuckle by closing the distance between them with a kiss.


End file.
